Sunday Open Thread: Many Rains Ago

Pbomb’s topic last week made me think of this artist and this song which would bring me to tears as a very young child. I had no idea what the song was even about at the time, but I would tear up and cry just listening to it. It’s the last song on the soundtrack for “Roots”, produced by Quincy Jones and performed by South African jazz artist Letta Mbulu.

Letta perfomed this deeply emotive song in both English and the native Nigerian language, Yoruba.

Good Morning
Has world hunger ended?
Do we have world peace?
Is Maxine Waters ever going to get a wig that fits?

I don’t know any black person who thought that the election of Barack Obama would heal race relations in this Country.

conlakappa

I am just still waiting for my gamboling unicorns, mmmkay? Or my parade. That is what he was supposed to deliver to us blacks.

danadevin74

If you ask me it did just the opposite
There were a couple of white co-workers who i thought were friends showed their true colors after the election.
Most black people i know deal in reality.
I did know some white people who thought Barack Obama would heal racism so maybe Jesse is talking about them.

http://pragmaticobotsunite.blogspot.com/ Sepia

I wonder if anyone responded to his request for Blacks who have pictures of PBO in their homes?

sagittarius

Good morning, Dannie!
Good morning, Miranda!
Good morning, POU Fam!

Psalm 16:8-11

I have set the Lord always before me; because he is at my right hand, I shall not be moved.

For thou wilt not leave my soul in hell; neither wilt thou suffer thine Holy One to see corruption.

Thou wilt shew me the path of life: in thy presence is fulness of joy; at thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore.

rikyrah

good morning, sag!!

Miranda

Damn Mitt.

Temple Mount Tackiness
By Jeffrey Goldberg
Jul 29 2012, 8:48 AM ET 2

Today is Tisha b’Av, the ninth of Av, a Jewish day of fasting and mourning. It is on this day that the First and Second Temples were destroyed. The Western Wall, in Jerusalem, is a retaining wall of the Second Temple. It is, especially on this day, a locus of prayer and reflection. It is also, on this particular Tisha b’Av, the location of a very important photo opportunity for an American presidential candidate.

Striping implies that he had any of those things to begin with, doesn’t it? That family is full of yawn. The time he could have spent cleaning up his financial situation instead he spent making the bland even more bland.

jds09

Good. I hope they don’t. They have some skin in the game, another GW hurts them (and the rest of the world) too.

Miranda

Its so cool how this President is always so in-the-know with stuff about pop culture and sports.

President Obama to Nnamdi: ‘Tell Vick to slide’
July 25, 2012, 2:41 pm

Eagles de facto ambassador Nnamdi Asomugha on Monday met Obama at a fundraiser in Oakland, and the President asked the cornerback to pass a message on to Vick:

“He told me to tell Vick to slide. I promise,” Asomugha said moments after arriving at Lehigh for training camp. “We talked about football for about three or four minutes. The one thing that stuck out — tell Vick to slide. He’s a big fan.”

Cue the Mittens camp coming up with the “Dogs Against Obama Too!!!” Web site, with co-signing from PETA and lefties who care more about dogs than they do the homeless/starving in 5-4-3…

GN

If PBO can be into the soap opera and drama of football and sports or whatever, some of us can have reality tv and junk which we enjoy. It’s a wash. Cute story!

creolechild

Good morning POU!~

Fewer and fewer people are relying on the major media for news.

~snip~

There was a reason the Founders put protection of the press in the Bill of Rights; it’s too important to take for granted. We’re beginning to see what happens in a democracy without a vibrant press; we now have a government that is as corrupt as any in history, but the press corps is cowed, for some reason, under threat of a loss of “access” to the seats of power. What I’m wondering is, why isn’t that a news story in itself? If the government is threatening to cut the press out of the White House, isn’t that a great news story that should be reported? It’s time for the press to get off its collective duff, and go for the glory.

If you want to make money with journalism, try doing some actual journalism. For a change.

Parents of America, are you ready for your children’s education to be fair and balanced? News Corp. announced Monday that it will collaborate with AT&T to bring digital education services and products to U.S. schools.

News Corp.? Yes, News Corp. At first blush, it may seem the company has no business in the education market. However, companies from many different sectors are rushing to get in on the digital-education boom, some with a better pedagogical pedigree than others, and some with better focus and energy than others. And when you look more closely at News Corp.’s plans, it’s evident that theirs is no half-hearted effort.

The problem for Bibi is that a majority of Israelis do not want to go to war with Iran–at least not unless the US backs them–which I suppose is where Romney comes in.

Haaretz poll: Most of the public opposes an Israeli strike on Iran

~snip~

Netanyahu, who returned to Israel on Wednesday, is facing a complex political situation. On the one hand, he and his party seem to be in top political form. On the other, 58 percent of those polled opposed an Israeli strike on Iran, without U.S. backing. Thus it seems Netanyahu has not convinced those for whom he has been repeatedly threatening Tehran.

BiBi does this because folks like Cantor, McCain and Lieberman go over there and conspire with him behind PBO’s back. Case in point: U.S. health care reform. BiBi’s ass should’ve been called out a long time ago when he tried to interfere with U.S. health care reform policy, but congress and the media stayed silent. Meanwhile, when PBO bowed to the Saudi king and Japan emperor, they acted like he committed treason.

creolechild

Uninformed American Voter Shows Slight Signs Of Improvement

The percentage of registered voters who think President Obama is a Christian is edging toward 50 percent, an 11-point increase from August 2010, but still short of the 55 percent who thought so in October 2008, according to a new poll from Pew.

– – – -Harry Porter says pretty much what I have been saying. Which is, Romney has nothing to say. He doesn’t want to talk about his religion. He doesn’t want to be associated with the company that made him rich. He doesn’t want to talk about his record as governor of Massachusetts, which involved the third-worst job creation in the nation, an assault weapons ban, and the template for ObamaCare. He doesn’t want to talk about the Olympics. He doesn’t want to talk in any detail about the Paul Ryan budget he has endorsed. He doesn’t want to talk about his Ivy League education. He doesn’t want to be associated in any way with his wife’s horse. He doesn’t want to talk about his tax returns or his offshore bank accounts. He doesn’t want to talk about his time at prep school. He doesn’t want to talk about his plans to build a car elevator in his garage. He doesn’t want to talk about the time he strapped his dog to the top of his station wagon. He doesn’t want to talk about where he differs from George W. Bush. He doesn’t want to take a stand on anything. He doesn’t want to talk about why he’s changed his position on almost every issue under the sun, including abortion.
THERE IS MORE

If Detroit Emergency Manager and Rick Snyder appointee Roy Roberts thought it was a good idea to pink slip all of Detroit’s teachers, gut funding for schools and then force a contract on those teachers who were returning, he hasn’t come face to face with AFT President Randi Weingarten recently. She and over 500 angry teachers had a message for Roberts: You had better sit down at the table and start negotiating rather than dictating. Weingarten met with Roberts for about 45 minutes Friday after firing up the troops at a general session of about 3,000 teacher-delegates.

NOW IMMA look this up in his bio. Perhaps these R among his “boys will B boys”- — PRANKS! LOL.

Good 2 C U nellcote. :>)

Miranda

Romney looking even more impotent in Israel
_____________________________________

Romney cancels on Yacimovich after meeting with Netanyahu
Circles close to former opposition leader Yacimovich say meeting cancelled over disagreements surrounding the economic measures the Netanyahu government is about to adopt.

Much has been written about the warm personal relationship between the two friends, ex-governor Mitt Romney, the Republican candidate for the presidency of the United States, and Benjamin Netanyahu, the prime minister of Israel. Today it has become clear that the two are more than just friends. Romney apparently accepts instructions from Netanyahu who succeeded in getting him to cancel a scheduled and meticulously planned meeting with MK Shelly Yacimovich, the leader of the Labor party.

Willard is getting played. He is looking like and acting like a puppet. THIS is the “International Tour of Strength?” Yikes.

creolechild

The IRS Is Aggressively Auditing “Global High-Wealth Individuals”—People Just Like Mitt Romney

In 2009, IRS Commissioner Doug Shulman announced that the IRS had created a new task force to audit people he called “global high-wealth individuals.” These new IRS targets, Shulman explained, have tens of millions of dollars in income and assets and “make use of sophisticated financial, business, and investment arrangements with complicated legal structures and tax consequences.”

The Corbett administration, accused of underestimating the number of Pennsylvanians who lack proper identification to vote in November, has recently provided flawed figures that may wildly overstate the problem and further muddle the impact of the new voter-ID law.

The Department of State announced July 3 that as many as 758,000 voters did not have Pennsylvania Department of Transportation ID, the most common credential they will need to cast ballots in November under the state’s new voter-ID law. That’s 9.2 percent of the electorate.

The department cautioned at the time that some people on the list might actually have driver’s licenses or other PennDot ID. A person using different first names on voter registration and a driver’s license, for instance, would likely turn up as needing ID, said the department’s chief spokesman, Ron Ruman.

In fact, an Inquirer review of the state’s data suggests there are so many false hits – showing many people without PennDot ID even though they have had it for decades – that the list has little value informing the debate over voter ID, or even identifying who may need help getting credentials to vote.

Former Philadelphia Mayor W. Wilson Goode is on the list as not having PennDot ID. He has had a Pennsylvania driver’s license for 50 years.

Goode’s son City Councilman W. Wilson Jr. is also on the list. So are four of his Council colleagues – Dennis O’Brien, Brian O’Neill, Maria Quiñones Sánchez, and Marian Tasco. All have licenses.

In addition to the stated problem with people who use different first names on different documents, it appears the state’s computers had problems distinguishing names containing spaces, like Mary Ellen, or Van Dyke; names with hyphens, like Olivia Newton-John; and names that computers sometimes spell with spaces, like Mc Dougall.

In Philadelphia alone, more than 10,000 people whose names begin with “Mc” were listed as not having PennDot ID. They included state Supreme Court Justice Seamus P. McCaffery, a driver whose name is spelled Mc Caffery on the city’s voter rolls.

Names with apostrophes, like O’Brien and O’Neill, were especially troublesome because PennDot’s computer system doesn’t use apostrophes, according to David Burgess, a Department of State deputy secretary in charge of computer operations.

The Inquirer tested the state’s list by making random calls to registered voters in Philadelphia who were at least 80 years old. The demographic was chosen to gauge the impact of the law on would-be voters who might have the most difficulty getting to PennDot license centers to obtain photo ID.

A team of Inquirer reporters placed calls to 325 of those older voters listed as lacking PennDot ID. Out of 101 people interviewed, 76 said they already had PennDot identification, despite being on the state’s list. That’s 75 percent.

5 Facts About Overseas Outsourcing: Trend Continues to Grow as American Workers Suffer

The ongoing national debate about the employment practices of U.S. companies and private equity firms abroad features two phrases that confuse rather than clarify the issues: offshoring and outsourcing. For most Americans, the phrases are interchangeable, referring to the agonizing loss of jobs here in the United States, many in manufacturing, to workers abroad—aided and abetted by U.S. businesses and investors….

Still, before we present the five most important facts about overseas outsourcing, let’s first get the definitions right. According to Plunkett Research, a leading research group on outsourcing and offshoring practices, offshoring refers to:

Harry Porter says pretty much what I have been saying. Which is, Romney has nothing to say. He doesn’t want to talk about his religion. He doesn’t want to be associated with the company that made him rich. He doesn’t want to talk about his record as governor of Massachusetts, which involved the third-worst job creation in the nation, an assault weapons ban, and the template for ObamaCare. He doesn’t want to talk about the Olympics. He doesn’t want to talk in any detail about the Paul Ryan budget he has endorsed. He doesn’t want to talk about his Ivy League education. He doesn’t want to be associated in any way with his wife’s horse. He doesn’t want to talk about his tax returns or his offshore bank accounts. He doesn’t want to talk about his time at prep school. He doesn’t want to talk about his plans to build a car elevator in his garage. He doesn’t want to talk about the time he strapped his dog to the top of his station wagon. He doesn’t want to talk about where he differs from George W. Bush. He doesn’t want to take a stand on anything. He doesn’t want to talk about why he’s changed his position on almost every issue under the sun, including abortion.

Mitt Romney is willing to criticize the president, including with fictitious allegations and grossly inaccurate mischaracterizations. But he has nothing to say for himself in his own defense or even in his own favor. He doesn’t even want to talk to the press.

Circles close to former opposition leader Yacimovich say meeting cancelled over disagreements surrounding the economic measures the Netanyahu government is about to adopt.

By Yossi Verter | Jul.29, 2012 | 3:57 PM

Much has been written about the warm personal relationship between the two friends, ex-governor Mitt Romney, the Republican candidate for the presidency of the United States, and Benjamin Netanyahu, the prime minister of Israel. Today it has become clear that the two are more than just friends. Romney apparently accepts instructions from Netanyahu who succeeded in getting him to cancel a scheduled and meticulously planned meeting with MK Shelly Yacimovich, the leader of the Labor party.

Here is how things developed: A month ago, when Yacimovich was still the leader of the opposition, Dan Senor, Romney’s key foreign policy adviser, approached Labor Knesset faction head Yitzhak (Buzi) Herzog with a request, in Romney’s name, to meet the then-head of the Israeli opposition during his scheduled Israeli visit. A meeting with the opposition leader is also required as a matter of protocol; when then-senator Barack Obama visited Israel on the eve of the 2008 U.S. elections, he met with Benjamin Netanyahu.

The two bureaus, Romney’s and Yacimovich’s, began coordinating the meeting, where and how long it would be along with a joint statement to the press. But a week ago, after Kadima head MK Shaul Mofaz left the government, Yacimovich ceased to be opposition leader. Herzog took the initiative and informed the Romney staff of the change in Yacimovich’s status, and requested that the meeting be cancelled.

Romney’s staff would have none of it. They told Herzog that they were au courant with happenings on the Israeli political scene, knew that Mofaz was now opposition leader (Romney will also meet with him), and insisted on holding the Yacimovich meeting as planned.

Two startling admissions by Republican officials in the past few months have been noted and then allowed to fade into the torrent of information fed at us each and every day. We cannot let this undeniable proof that our democracy is being subverted be allowed to slip into our browsing history like a nipslip or hilarious Bill Murray sighting. This is one instance when the power of the Internet to share and reshare information must be utilized to spread what the media won’t or can’t.

I’ll risk injecting all the gravity I have to say a simple fact: your right to vote is at stake in the 2012 election.

The GOP plot to disenfranchise voters has been exposed for what it is: an attempt to subvert our democratic republic and install those who will serve those who fund the Republican Party. The sacred right to vote, the most crucial civil right, must be defended.

Look at the evidence. It comes directly from the mouths of Republicans.

THE U.S. DISTRICT Court is soon to rule on Texas’s new voter ID law. Ostensibly to combat voter fraud — the existence of which has yet to be demonstrated — the law would require every voter to present a government-issued photo ID at the poll. After a week of arguments this month, the question before the panel of federal judges is whether this law — one of many to emerge in the wake of 2010’s Republican legislative resurgence — places an undue burden on minorities.

Under the Voting Rights Act of 1965, jurisdictions such as Texas with a history of suppressing minority voting must prove that any new requirements don’t “have the effect of denying or abridging the right to vote on account of race or color.” In March, the Justice Department denied the Lone Star State the necessary clearance for this new law, arguing that it would disproportionately affect Hispanic voters. Texas officials appealed. To preserve the access of all citizens to the right to vote — certainly among the most sacrosanct in our democracy — the District Court should follow the Justice Department’s lead and strike down this highly suspect and unnecessary law.

Should the judges rule in favor of this photo ID requirement, their decision will essentially legitimize a politically motivated attempt to institutionalize disenfranchisement in other states besides Texas. Eleven states have passed voter ID laws since the Republican legislative victories in 2010, and nine of them — including Texas — have Republican governors. It’s no secret that President Obama’s popularity among minority voters contributed significantly to his 2008 victory. According to a report from the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University Law School, this recent spate of laws would affect these voters the most.

…………………………….

Until they do, Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. is right: These laws are the 21st-century century equivalent of poll taxes.

According to the results of our recent tracking polls in Colorado, Nevada and Florida’s Orlando and Tampa media markets, the SEIU / Priorities Spanish-language independent expenditure campaign targeted at Hispanic voters has made a clear impact on the dynamics of the Presidential contest….

In each state, President Obama continues to dominate over Mitt Romney among likely Hispanic voters and is performing at or above 2008 exit poll levels; in Colorado he leads by 45-points, 70 to 25 percent; in the Orlando market he leads by 34-points, 64 to 30 percent; in the Tampa market he leads by 33-points, 63 to 30 percent; and in Nevada he leads by 45-points, 69 to 24 percent.

Updated Infographic: Where Are the Greatest Numbers of Potential Latino Voters? – Eligible but Unregistered Voters Could Swing Elections in November

With only four months until the presidential election, Latino voters are center stage in the political debate. They already comprise at least 5 percent of the adult citizen population in almost half of all states and more than 10 percent in 11 states. Moreover, they are a key part of the electorate in a number of battleground states such as Nevada, Colorado, New Mexico, and Florida, and a segment of the population with the power to swing the election.

—–MR. PRESIDENT: —-Barack Obama finished his Israel trip with a pre-dawn visit to Jerusalem’s Western Wall this morning, Reuters reports. The candidate, wearing a skullcap, placed a prayer he had written in the wall as a rabbi read from a psalm. A heckler shouted “Jerusalem is not for sale”—but was drowned out by chants of “O-ba-ma, O-ba-ma.”

—-Teh WILLARD:—Made NO statement when asked about his London trip. LOL

– – -Romney tells @DavidMuir he doesn’t know if there was a year when he paid a tax rate lower than 13.9%. Says he’ll have to go back and look.

– – -Mitt Romney has thus far refused to heed the call from a growing number of people within the Republican party to release more tax returns. And during an interview with ABC’s David Muir from Israel, the former Massachusetts governor revealed that the documents may show that he paid very little in taxes: - – – –

Fox News co-host Bob Beckel apologized on Thursday after he said that presumptive Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney was a “punk” who had the “personality of a Ken doll.”

~snip~

Following a commercial break, Beckel took a moment to apologize for the “punk” jab. “I was not asked to say this,” Beckel insisted. “I called Romney a punk in the last segment. I got a little heated because I’m outnumbered four to one, but I take that back. I don’t think he’s a punk, in fact I think he’s a nice guy. I think he’s not very good to be President of the United States – as a matter of fact, I think he’s terrible.”

She stood right next to him as the picture of happily wedded bliss, as he was sworn in as the Democratic mayor of San Francisco ( having won the election with a campaign funded and backed by rightwing old money in San Francisco!)

– – – This morning on Fox News Sunday, Justice Antonin Scalia reiterated just how extremely his Constitutional originalism can be applied. Referring to the recent shooting in Aurora, CO, host Chris Wallace asked the Supreme Court Justice about gun control, and whether the Second Amendment allows for any limitations to gun rights. Scalia admitted there could be, such as “frighting” (carrying a big ax just to scare people), but they would still have to be determined with an 18th-Century perspective in mind. According to his originalism, if a weapon can be hand-held, though, it probably still falls under the right o “bear arms”:

– – – – -SNIP — —

Such originalism is a dangerous distortion of 21st-Century reality. There is no conceivable way to apply the Founding Fathers’ understanding of a ”well-regulated militia” armed with slow-to-load, hard-to-aim muskets to today’s weapon technology. Arguably, the full extent of alleged gunman James Holmes’ munitions could have easily decimated an entire brigade of musketeers before they’d even loaded their first ball.

GROSS MIS-INTERPRETATION of the Constitution.!!- – – -Wish he would -GO. —

rikyrah

he is crazy. utterly crazy.

creolechild

Policeman John Perrault Fired After Calling Red Sox Player A ‘Monday’

The decision by Mayor Dean Mazzarella to sack Perrault (pictured above) came after Leominster Police Chief Robert Healey held a disciplinary hearing for Perrault in which the officer was found to have a history of making racial slurs.

“You have demonstrated through your racist comments that you cannot continue as a patrol officer,” was how Mazzarella put it in a letter terminating Perrault.

Good morning everyone! I was going to watch the live gymnastic Olympic feed this morning and ended up online with ATT tech support. They got it fixed just in time for me to go to work!

creolechild

Celebration of the UK National Health Service

If you missed the opening ceremony of the Olympics on Friday evening, here’s a glimpse. This was seriously mind blowing, a country where the people pay higher taxes for nationalized health care, and they celebrate it. The mere mention of it in the U.S. makes the right-wing recoil in horror and hiss all at once.

– – – Speaking to reporters in Jerusalem, a top foreign policy advier to Mitt Romney said the GOP presidential nominee would support an Israeli decision to attack Iran’s nuclear program. The right-wing adviser Dan Senor said Iran should not be able to attain a nuclear “capability” — a significant break in language from state U.S. policy.

Senor told reporters:

If Israel has to take action on its own, in order to stop Iran from developing the capability, the governor would respect that decision.

FLIP-FLOP: – – -5 days ago, before the VFW, here was his “tough talk”: —

– -The former Massachusetts governor called for the U.S. to insist that Iran cease all enrichment of uranium — rather than limit it to 5 percent, as administration officials have indicated they might accept — as part of any agreement on its nuclear program.

“A clear line has to be drawn,” Romney said, taking a position that mirrors Israel’s on Iran. “There must be a full suspension of any enrichment whatsoever, period.”

— — Sooo — –INDECISIVE!! — SAYIN’ — — NOTHING!! — –

nellcote

well, that was quick…

Romney seems to back off adviser’s suggestion he would support Israeli strike against Iran

JERUSALEM — Mitt Romney said Sunday that he respects the right of Israel to defend itself, but seemed to back off a foreign policy adviser’s earlier suggestion that he would support a unilateral military strike by Israel against Iran to stop Tehran from obtaining nuclear weapon capability.
…

A senior Israeli official denied a report in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz on Sunday that Obama’s national security adviser, Tom Donilon, had briefed Netanyahu during a recent visit on American plans for a possible attack on Iran. The report, which cited an unnamed senior American official, coincided with the start of Romney’s meetings here and appeared to underline Obama’s readiness to use military force. “Nothing in the article is correct,” said the Israeli official, who declined to be named because of the sensitivity of the issue.

Trying to figure out wtf is going on thru the Israeli papers is a trip. It seems to be all propaganda and bs 24/7. From what I can figure out Haaretz is a low distribution lefty paper. Jerusalem Post is right wing (aka “centrist” in Israel speak) and Adelson’s rag is a widely distributed wingnut freebie.

ymmv, lol

Worldwatcher7

Mitt really is an amazing candidate. I’d thought he’d botched up as much as humanly possible in London, but no, he gets to Israel and outdoes himself.

LONDON – The morning after Ryan Lochte won the first American gold medal of the London Olympics, Lochte’s smile was plastered all over the internet and newspapers worldwide.

In some of those photos — if you look close enough — you’ll see he’s wearing a stars-and-stripes, jewel-encrusted “grill” across his top row of teeth.

That patriotic mouthpiece almost cost Lochte his medal, he said afterwards. Lochte said he was told he wouldn’t receive his medal if he wore the grill on the podium Saturday night, a USA Swimming representative said. Lochte put the grill on after he got his gold.

Local grocery store boosts community, and itself, by hiring skid row homeless, those who struggled with addiction

In staffing his organic-oriented Fresco Community Market in Montecito Heights early last year, Jon Murga looked for employees in an unlikely place: skid row. He hired 11 people then and one this month through a job development program at the Los Angeles Mission. Most were trying to stay off drugs, alcohol or both as they struggled to exit the ranks of the homeless. Some were trying to put criminal convictions in the past. To Murga, 47, it is the right thing for employers in the community to do: “It’s possible to change the conversation about the homeless situation.”

Still, hiring skid row’s denizens is a risk that few small businesses are willing to take, said Allen Ceravolo, who runs the mission’s career center.

If the extremists on the far right get their mitts (pardon the pun) on the White House we can look forward to:

The end of public education
The end of Social Security
The end of Medicare
The end of any hope for a better health care system
The end of regulations of any kind, particularly on banking institutions and big polluters
The end of alternative energy
The end of manufacturing in America
The end of unions of any kind
The repeal of Roe v. Wade
The elimination of women’s rights
The elimination of minority rights

We will have:

Less police
Less firefighters
More guns on the streets
More crime
More poverty
Higher rates of illiteracy
Higher infant mortality rates

And if that happens I don’t want to hear any Democrats crying or any of the Sole Patrol trying to protest. No, they better jump in and proudly boast of ending Roe V. Wade and minority rights, because their actions over the last 3.5 years will have brought us to that point.

— –Personally, I would respect a presidential candidate more if they said that any decision to attack Iran’s nuclear facilities would be made by them in consultation with their national security team, rather than just giving a free pass to Israel to do as they please.

I certainly recognize that Israel is a sovereign nation that retains the right to make its own decisions about war and peace within the confines of international law. But they are also a recipient of a very large amount of U.S. foreign aid, and a decision to attack Iran (particularly when it has been openly blessed by the president of the United States) will have enormous consequences for American interests in the region.

– – -SNIP – —

I don’t like Mitt Romney’s rhetoric and I don’t like his approach. There has to be some conditionality to any support of an Israeli attack on Iran, but Romney doesn’t provide any.

– – -SNIP—

I think that is dangerous and irresponsible and it violates his pledge to not criticize our foreign policy while he is abroad.

I also think it makes him look weak, as though he’s willing to play the role of Tony Blair to Netanyahu’s George W. Bush. Is Romney a poodle?
THERE IS MORE.

NOTE: There R a few statements that were problematic 4 me.

Town

We already know Romney is weak b/c Grover said all he’s there to do is sign what they put in front of him and he didn’t push back.

That was so sweet how they all went over to her. They were gonna get their hugs!

rikyrah

TOD has the pics

jds09

FLOTUS is rockin’ that ponytail.

http://pragmaticobotsunite.blogspot.com/ Sepia

Her ponytail got whip action!

crazycanuck

Every time I try to watch the video the link changes on me.

isonprize

awww, maybe it’s a Canada thing? Sorry….

crazycanuck

yeah, always blame the Canadians lol

rikyrah

love this quote:

Love this:

“Seeing some of the most famous athletes in the world line up for embraces with Mrs. Obama, dressed casually in a grey sweater, was a surreal sight. There were kisses of cheeks, and little-kid smiles from superstars. It was almost as if she was the mother of a son’s little-league team, ready to give all of the players frozen treats after a game.

http://pragmaticobotsunite.blogspot.com/ Sepia

I love that!!

rikyrah

I’m glad that Bibi clowned with Willard, who stood there like a sheep.

they’ve been dancing around this. I’m glad that there’s no more dancing. folks on our side on the aisle have said they wanted war with Iran for awhile, only to be poo-pooed. can’t wait to see how the MSM tapdances around this.

http://winthemarket.com/the-spontaneous-healing-plan/ woody45

What did Bibi say?

rikyrah

1. Iran sanctions haven’t worked.
2. Then, one of Willard’s ‘ADVISERS’ says that Willard would, of course, support a PRE-EMPTIVE STRIKE AGAINST IRAN BY ISRAEL.

rikyrah

just pointing out..

Willard is ZERO FOR TWO on his overseas trip.

will he hit the trifecta in Poland?

nellcote

I want someone in the media to ask Rmoney about labor unions when he gets to Poland.

— – -The concept of a society and its communal character takes decades to develop into its current state, and any digression or progress is normally slow in coming. America is no different, and over 60 years this country became the envy of the world because the government worked for nearly all the people and it engendered shared sacrifice for the good of every citizen and the nation itself. For the past three years, Republicans have attempted to convert the government into a plutocracy, and if successful, Reagan’s claim that government is inherently bad will reach fruition. It has taken 30 years, but if Republicans have their way, then government is the enemy.

For the past four months this column warned that Romney’s economic agenda decimates the poor with Draconian cuts to critical safety nets, and that the middle class was on the chopping block as well. Pundits claimed Romney’s tax plan lacked details, but he implied that to give the wealthy trillions in tax cuts, the poor would pay higher taxes and education, safety nets, police and fire protection, and construction will suffer deep cuts, if not elimination. This week, Senate Republicans proposed a tax plan incorporating Romney’s ideas, and coupled with deep cuts to social programs, transforms America into a nation of peasants to enrich the wealthy.
– – – -SNIP —
Senator Orin Hatch and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell proposed raising taxes on working families by $11 billion to make room for tax cuts for the wealthy. The two main increases affect poor and moderate income families. . . .
THERE IS MORE.

– – LIKE the song says: – -The RICH get RICH annnd the POOR get POORER – — -under THEIR PLAN.geesh.

Laura Ziskin Productions and Cassian Elwes are producing The Butler, which is based on Wil Haygood’s Washington Post article about Eugene Allen, a black man who worked in the White House for eight presidents, beginning in 1952. Hilary Schor also is a producer on the film.

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Haygood’s story was published Nov. 7, 2008, just after the election of President Obama. Allen and his wife of 65 years marveled that a black man could be president. But on Election Day, Allen cast his vote alone; his wife had died the day before. Winfrey will play Allen’s wife in The Butler.

Standing on Israeli soil, U.S. presidential candidate Mitt Romney on Sunday declared Jerusalem to be the capital of the Jewish state and said the United States has “a solemn duty and a moral imperative” to block Iran from achieving nuclear weapons capability.

“Make no mistake, the ayatollahs in Iran are testing our moral defenses. They want to know who will object and who will look the other way,” he said. “We will not look away nor will our country ever look away from our passion and commitment to Israel.”

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Romney’s declaration that Jerusalem is Israel’s capital was matter-of-fact and in keeping with claims made by Israeli governments for decades, even though the United States, like other nations, maintains its embassy in Tel Aviv.